Arizona hasn’t had to deal with a divided government for quite some time with the Governor’s Office and both chambers of the Legislature being controlled by Republicans for over a decade. At the beginning of 2023, however, a unified government morphed into a divided government, and tensions between the two branches of are beginning to ratchet up as the 56th Legislature enters its second month of the year.
This week, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen announced the formation of a new Senate Committee on Director Nominations, which is “tasked with gathering information and evaluating qualifications on the governor’s executive appointments in order to recommend a course of action for the Senate to take on each individual.” President Petersen appointed five Senators to serve on this committee – three Republicans and two Democrats. Senator Jake Hoffman will serve as the chair, and Senator Sine Kerr as the vice-chair. Senators T.J. Shope, Christine Marsh, and Eva Burch complete the appointments to the committee.
The creation of this committee follows Petersen’s statement on January 23, threatening to take action against Governor Hobbs if her office did not send director nominations to the Arizona Senate, according to state law. Petersen tweeted, “The law says the governor will promptly send her nominations to the Senate. We have not received one director nomination that she has announced. It would be unfortunate if we have to sue the governor to comply with the law.” When another Twitter user called out the East Valley lawmaker on why he decided to use this public platform to issue his challenge, Petersen revealed that he “called her office five days ago.”
According to the Senate Republican release announcing the Committee on Director Nominations, Governor Hobbs “has failed to submit the required documentation to the Senate on 23 out of 25 individuals who have so far been appointed (as directors).”
Not surprisingly, the new committee has been met with praise on the Republican side and condemnation on the Democrat side. Committee Chairman Hoffman said, “Hobbs’ apparent refusal to follow the law…is unacceptable and demonstrates her willingness to play political games with the lives and safety of Arizona citizens.” Committee Vice Chair (and Senate Majority Whip) Kerr stated, “…we don’t know yet if these individuals are even qualified to hold these positions.” Committee Member and Senate President Pro Tempore Shope called out the governor for her repeated claims of bipartisan and transparent leadership, saying, “for a governor who has made numerous comments on wanting bipartisanship at the Capitol, the way to achieve that goal is not ignore statutory duties or intentionally delay statutory checks and balances.” The Arizona Freedom Caucus tweeted, “The Senate must take its constitutional duty to act as a check & balance on Katie Hobbs’ executive branch seriously.”
On the Democrat side, Senator Marsh, in voting no on the creation of this committee on the Senate floor, said that she wished that legislators would “instead be focusing on the truly time-sensitive issue that we have in front of us, which is passing the AEL (Aggregate Expenditure Limit).” Senator Priya Sundareshan tweeted that the new committee was “another power grab on the Senate floor.” And the Arizona Senate Democrats stated that “the Arizona Senate Republicans continue to take cheap shots at Governor Hobbs and the people of Arizona.”
Now, with the committee established, the Arizona Senate awaits the lawful transmission of the documentation for the directors who have already been appointed to the Hobbs’ administration.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
On Monday, the Senate Elections Committee passed a bill requiring voter ID for those turning in early ballots on Election Day. The committee passed the bill, SB1135, along partisan lines: 5-3.
SB1135 also requires early ballots not delivered or mailed to the county recorder or other elections officers to be exchanged by the voter for a regular ballot at a polling place or voting center by 7 pm on Election Day. Electors who exchange their early ballot for a regular ballot must spoil their early ballot and receive a regular ballot from an election official.
An earlier version of the bill would’ve required automatic removal of voters from the Active Early Voter List (AEVL) if they bring their early ballot to a polling place to vote in person. However the bill sponsor, State Sen. John Kavanagh (R-LD03), removed this provision out of the bill via an adopted amendment.
State Sen. Juan Mendez (D-LD08) insisted that the requirement to spoil early ballots would disenfranchise voters, raising the hypothetical of a voter who forgets their ID and may not get to vote because of it. Kavanagh countered that those voters needed to prove that the early ballot legally belongs to them.
“How do I know you’re you if you don’t have ID? How do I know you didn’t find it on the street or you stole it from a friend’s house?” asked Kavanagh.
Mendez responded that signature verification would prevent that method of voter fraud. Kavanagh disagreed, arguing that signature verification is unreliable. Kavanagh said that signatures can be copied from government websites.
Kavanagh further argued that spoiling early ballots brought in on Election Day would reduce the current issue of weeks-long counting delays, since those ballots would be exchanged for regular ones tabulated on site.
“Don’t have it go into a box and then two to three days later we still don’t know who won,” said Kavanagh.
Kavanagh noted that this spoliation process could be avoided with the passage of another bill, SB1105, which allows voters who bring early ballots in on Election Day to have their vote tabulated immediately if they bring valid ID. The committee approved that bill as well.
State Sen. Priya Sundareshan (D-LD18) argued that the bill makes voting more difficult and time-consuming. Kavanagh disputed the idea that early ballots are meant to be dropped off in person, saying that the current flexibility in law causes confusion and disorganization.
Jen Marson with the Arizona Association of Counties (AACo) warned that SB1105’s language might undermine its intended purpose. Kavanagh promised to meet with the Association.
Among those who issued public comments on the bill was Ricardo Serna, a self-identified independent voter and poll worker. Serna claimed that the bill would disenfranchise college students because they simply didn’t have the time to cast their ballot as intended. Kavanagh said he didn’t believe that was true.
“I don’t know why you would limit choices for something so important as our elections,” said Serna.
Though Serna described himself as an “independent voter” and poll worker, he’s the president of Maricopa County Young Democrats. Serna was also the district field director for Progressive Turnout Project.
Thanks for sitting through that committee hearing and helping push back on the attacks that would make it harder for all of us to vote! https://t.co/vpeJQrGkQd
Majority Leader Sonny Borelli (R-LD30) pointed out that the state’s college campuses have early voting sites. Serna said that wasn’t enough.
The committee’s three Democrats were in opposition to the bill, claiming that it wasn’t inclusive enough and prioritized efficiency over accessibility. Sundareshan argued that early mail-in voting was essential to be inclusive of minority voters and other, unspecified groups.
“We need to be providing more options to vote, more accessibility at the ballot,” said Sundareshan.
State Sen. Anna Hernandez (D-LD24) concurred, saying that voting needed to be easier for historically underserved groups. Mendez opined that the bill created more barriers and confusion for election officials.
State Sen. Ken Bennett (R-LD01) expressed concern that Kavanagh’s bill would potentially contend with other bills, such as SB1105. Bennett voted to pass the bill but indicated that he wouldn’t support it on the floor if it ultimately conflicted with legislative language with other bills. Bennett urged Kavanagh to work with other legislators issuing similar legislation to ensure its viability.
“We have to keep voters’ ability to vote first,” said Bennett. “But I think we can have accuracy and speed up the process at the same time.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Election integrity measures haven’t been a source of unity for all Arizona Republicans over the past two years, but one bill just introduced by a state senator may have brought the party somewhat closer together on one aspect of reform.
The one-page bill, SB 1471, was recently introduced by Senator John Kavanagh, dealing with ballot tabulation and hand count comparison. According to the legislation, which would only apply to Arizona counties with a population of more than two million persons, “the officer in charge of elections in (these counties) shall randomly select four election precincts in the county from the ballot test decks used for logic and accuracy testing for the 2022 general election and shall recount all races using one hundred of those ballots from each precinct.” There would be a hand count of these ballots that would coincide with the machine count.
The legislation requires a county recorder to “compare the tabulator total and the hand count,” and take additional steps to recheck the counts should there be a “difference in the totals that is greater than one-tenth of one percent.” The county recorder would then “estimate how many persons working sixteen hours a day would be required to hand county the entire number of ballots cast in the November 2022 election.” After the conclusion of this process, the county recorder would transmit the report to the governor, president of the Arizona Senate, and the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer released a statement this week that appeared to be in support of the legislation, saying, “Smart legislation is key to improving Arizona’s elections and voters’ trust. …This legislation will build confidence in our election system by showing that machine tabulation is highly accurate, free of bias and fast. Thanks to Senator Kavanagh for this good idea.”
It remains to be seen if Republicans at the Legislature will be appreciative of Recorder Richer’s statement on SB 1471. Maricopa County officials and members of the Arizona Legislature have not always seen eye-to-eye over election integrity since the 2020 presidential contest, and there are often competing interests or motivations even in a perceived daylight of agreement between two opposing factions. Some legislative Republicans may see this bill as an opportunity to validate hand counts, while other Republicans may view this legislation as an endorsement of machine counting.
This bill has not been assigned to a committee, nor does it have any cosponsors at the time of publication.
Should this legislation pass the Arizona Senate and House, it remains to be seen whether it would be signed into law by Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs, who has promised to use her veto stamp on bills she believes are partisan in nature.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: to those who want to work together to address Arizona's biggest challenges, my door is always open.
To those who would rather stick with their partisan agendas, my veto pen is ready.https://t.co/tC4Or9uRmb
One of the Arizona Legislature’s election integrity measures cleared its first hurdle this week, putting it one step closer to a possible showdown with Governor Katie Hobbs’ office.
The bill, HB2305, which was sponsored by Representative Cory McGarr, deals with ballots, signature verification, and observers. It cleared the Arizona House Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee on Wednesday, February 1, with a party-line 6-4 vote. Representatives Harris, Heap, Jones, Smith, Kolodin, and Parker voted to pass the legislation out of the Republican-controlled committee.
According to the summary from the Arizona Legislature, HB2305 “requires the County Recorder and county officer in charge of elections to allow party representatives to observe each stage of the signature verification process for early ballots.” This appears to already be existing law in ARS 16-621 (“All proceedings at the counting center…shall be conducted in accordance with the approved instructions and procedures manual issued pursuant to section 16-452 under the observation of representatives of each political party and the public.”) as one member of the Arizona House pointed out to AZ Free News, but some legislators desire to make the law crystal clear to help improve the transparency and integrity of the election process and to ensure that all Arizona counties are following the law when it comes to signature verification.
The Arizona signature verification process has received a tremendous amount of scrutiny since the 2020 presidential election – especially due to the sheer number of early ballots returned prior to and on Election Day each cycle. Arizona county officials spend weeks and countless hours tabulating ballots returned through the mail or dropped off at designated sites up until 7pm on Election Night. Many of the late arrivals are counted in the days following Election Day, and signatures are supposed to be verified before any vote is officially tallied.
Signature verification was a large focus of former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s investigation into the Maricopa County 2020 General Election and his subsequent interim report to former Senate President Karen Fann on April 6, 2022. The interim report found that “on November 4, 2020, the Maricopa County Recorder verified 206,648 early ballot affidavit signatures, which resulted in an average of 4.6 seconds per signature.” Brnovich’s report stated that “there are simply too many early ballots that must be verified in too limited a period of time, thus leaving the system vulnerable to error, fraud and oversight.”
Brnovich’s reported concluded that “because signature verification is the most important current check on early ballots, there must be opportunities for parties’ election observers to meaningfully observe the signature verification process in real time and to raise objections if officials are not doing their jobs to actually and accurately verify signatures.” He then called on the Arizona Legislature to act “to ensure transparency on this check.” Representative McGarr’s legislation may be an answer to that suggestion.
At last count of the legislation’s page on the Arizona Legislature’s website, there were 153 entries in support of HB2305 and only 25 against. The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office took a neutral position.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) has the attention of national and local Republicans – especially as a group may be forming to push this voting reform measure onto the 2024 Arizona ballot to affect future elections.
After the Republican National Committee (RNC) voted last week to oppose RCV, Arizona Representative Austin Smith, who is a freshman member of the legislature and the Arizona Freedom Caucus, introduced HB2552 to prohibit RCV in the Grand Canyon State.
Ranked Choice Voting is most prominently featured in Alaska, where voters rank their preferences in each election until one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. If RCV were to be successfully pushed by special interest groups in the 2024 election, Arizona’s primary and general elections would be effectively eliminated in favor of this new progressive system.
According to the Pew Research Center, “62 jurisdictions nationwide have adopted the voting method” – and more are on the way in the near future, including the attempt to airdrop it into Arizona.
Representative Smith posted on his Twitter account this week that his legislation had “support from a majority of the Republican caucus in both the Arizona House and Senate.”
Today I introduced HB2552 that prohibits Rank Choice Voting in the state of AZ. RCV is a disaster.
This has support from a majority of the Republican caucus in both the @AZHouseGOP & @AZSenateGOP. We stand united in not bringing Rank Choice Voting to Arizona. Let’s get it done! pic.twitter.com/Ttp3ivqKU7
Smith does not appear to be wrong about that. The bill has garnered 38 cosponsors from both legislative chambers.
The bill also appears to be destined for a quick vote as it has already received a first and second read in the Arizona House in its first week of existence.
RCV has long been a target of Representative Smith. Soon after Smith won his general election contest in November 2022, he tweeted that “We can never allow rank choice voting to happen in Arizona.”
In an exclusive interview with AZ Free News, Representative Smith explained why he introduced this legislation:
“I introduced HB 2552 with a majority of Republican lawmakers of all stripes because we’ve seen in the test run with RCV that it doesn’t work. It actually deepens problems with elections. It hurts voters and makes the process of tallying even harder. We shouldn’t make the process of vote tallying even harder for election workers and sow distrust in the process even more.”
Representative Smith’s bill has been met with tremendous applause from many people around Arizona and nationally, including two former elections officials in the state, David Romney (Election Services Division of the Arizona Secretary of State’s office) and Jen Wright (Assistant Attorney General and head of the Election Integrity Unit).
Should this legislation pass the Arizona Senate and House, it remains to be seen whether it would be signed into law by Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs, who has promised to use her veto stamp on bills she believes are partisan in nature.
This potential uncertainty if and when the legislation reaches the Ninth Floor won’t stop Representative Smith, however, from seeing his bill across the legislative finish line. Smith told AZ Free News, “It’s important for the legislature to show Arizona citizens that Republicans are going on the offensive to prevent bad policies from hurting Arizona’s elections. The best defense is a good offense, and my bill does just that.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Republican state legislators representing Scottsdale condemned a local superintendent for racist remarks that recently made national headlines. Scott Menzel, the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) superintendent, called the white race “problematic.”
Republicans representing District 3 — State Reps. Joseph Chaplik and Alex Kolodin, along with State Sen. John Kavanagh — urged Menzel to issue an apology and resign.
“The racist words and sentiments Menzel publicly expressed have no place in Scottsdale schools,” stated the trio. “Menzel’s racist views not only compromise his ability to lead, but he has made himself the center of a controversial spotlight that will only distract from learning.”
The three legislators also asked the SUSD Governing Board to remove Menzel. They noted that SUSD has faced mounting criticism in recent years over its incorporation of various progressive ideologies, such as on gender and race.
Menzel issued the remarks in a 2019 interview while working as a superintendent in Michigan. He said that white people, including children, needed to feel uncomfortable about themselves due to their race. Menzel further claimed that meritocracy was a myth.
“[W]hite people have racial identity as well, and in fact problematic racial identity that we typically avoid,” said Menzel. “[White people] should feel really, really uncomfortable, because we perpetuate a system by ignoring the realities in front of us, and living in a mythological reality.”
Menzel went on to celebrate public chaos as an opportunity for social reform.
“[White supremacy is] in the very fabric of the way this country was established, and we’ve never righted the wrongs of the genocide of the indigenous population, and the enslavement of a population from Africa on which the wealth of this country was built,” said Menzel.
At the time of the 2019 interview, Menzel had received numerous awards, honors, and recognitions for his leadership, and was a frequent featured panelist and guest speaker for local and state events. During the Obama administration, the White House named Menzel a YMCA Champion of Change in 2013. The next year, the Michigan Department of Education named Menzel to their advisory council on early childhood education.
SUSD hasn’t addressed this latest controversy from Menzel.
Under Menzel’s leadership the divide between parents and the district has only grown. Last year, the district adopted a controversial policy in which they posted the names of individuals submitting records requests, yet they would redact staff members’ names in response to those requests.
Menzel has also defended staff members that discussed gender ideology with kindergarten and elementary students without parental knowledge. He claimed those parents opposed to these discussions were in violation of Civil Rights law, insisting that the staff member in question was attacked because of her identity. Menzel further informed parents that the district wouldn’t punish employees over such behavior.
“To target an individual publicly for their personal identity — in this case the individual against whom this complaint was filed does not identify as either male or female — is overt discrimination and inconsistent with state and federal law as well as school district policy,” said Menzel.
In a separate incident in 2021, Menzel admonished parents and community members opposed to clubs focusing on children’s gender and sexuality. Menzel called them bullies.
Last April, SUSD’s social justice professionals promoted a drag queen storytime.
As the Arizona Daily Independent reported recently, the district falsely denied the existence of an official transgender support plan for nearly a year. The support plan, labeled “Confidential” by the district, noted that caregivers should be included in the completion of the document — not “must.” The district also considered ways to implement a gender support plan if the student’s parents or guardians weren’t supportive of such a plan.
In a 2015 equity panel hosted by Menzel’s former employer, Menzel proposed a “cradle to career education continuum” that resembled the controversial “cradle to grave” approach proposed by former President Barack Obama for lifelong government involvement.
The district only went so far as to remove the former board president, Jann-Michael Greenburg, from presidency after the 2021 discovery of his involvement in a dossier on parents and alleged political enemies within the district. Court cases concerning this dossier are ongoing.
